Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Middle East Page 12 of 22

Why Would Iran Attack Tankers?

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On June 19, 2019

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Well, if it did.

Let me tell a story, possibly apocryphal. Back in the 1970s, the Russian (USSR) ambassador supposedly had a talk with the Pakistani leader of the day. This is what he is reputed to have said.

” I do not know who will be in charge in Moscow in ten, twenty, or even 50 years. But what I do know is that whoever is there will want the same things then, that we do today. You can trust us, not because we pretend we are your friends, but because we are consistent.

Anyway, remember, that we’ll come back to it.

In the meantime, on June 13th there were reports that two tankers had been sunk in the Gulf. Claims were made they were sunk by Iran.

I shrugged. Important people want war between Iran and the United States, and in such a situation it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not. I moved on with my day.

(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating.)

But yesterday I discovered an interesting fact. Before the two tankers were sunk, something else happened:

On June 5, 2019, a huge fire consumed a storage facility for oil products at the Shahid Rajaee port in the southern Hormozgan Province. Located west of Bandar Abbas, the Shahid Rajaee port is Iran’s largest container shipping port. Reportedly, a vehicle used for transporting shipping containers exploded and caught fire. Since there were oil products near the site of the explosion, the blaze spread quickly to several tanks and storage sites and caused heavy damage to the port. The spreading fire set off huge explosions which shot fireballs and heavy smoke high into the air.

On June 7, 2019, six Iranian merchant ships were set ablaze almost simultaneously in two Persian Gulf ports.

First, five ships “caught fire” in the port of Nakhl Taghi in the Asaluyeh region of the Bushehr Province. Three of these ships were completely burned and the two others suffered major damage. Several port workers and sailors were injured. As well, at least one cargo ship burst into flames and burned completely at the port of Bualhir, near Delvar. The fire was attributed to “incendiary devices” of “unknown origin.” The local authorities in the Bushehr Province called the fires a “suspicious event” and went no further.

Oh hey.

So, assuming the Iranians did attack the ships, they were retaliating.

Iran has long said that if they can’t get their oil to customers, no one will get oil to customers through the Gulf.

Yeah.

But this has bigger consequences. The real problem is simpler: The US made a deal with the Iranians, under Obama, then repudiated it when the President changed.

The US has arrogated to itself the right to impose sanctions on anyone it wants, for any reason, with no recourse by the victim. It is using this “right” in an attempt to remove Iran’s government.

The US cannot be trusted. Every few years, it changes. You can’t make a deal and be sure it will be honored for any length of time, let alone 10, 20, or 50 years.

Americans who squeal about Trump being an aberration both miss the point (your system allowed him) and are wrong: Bush attacked Iraq based on lies, and everyone knows it. Hilary Clinton promised the Russians that Qaddafi would not be removed, then removed him and gloated about him being killed after being raped by a knife.

The US can’t be trusted.

So the larger consequence is that a coalition of countries, including multiple oil producers, China and Russia are moving to sell and buy oil in a bundle of currencies which does not include the US dollar, and where no payments go through the payment system which the US can control (systems like SWIFT, to slightly oversimplify).

Dollar hegemony is one of the main supports of American hegemony. Misuse of dollar hegemony to attack other countries has brought us to this point.

I’ve been a bit of a broken record on this issue, but that’s because it’s been the obvious consequence of the US Treasury’s misuse of its powers.

Other great powers and their allies can put up with a cruel, even an evil, hegemon. What they will not put up with is a capricious one whom they cannot predict.

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The Imperial Presidency and Eterna-War

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On May 23, 2019

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Constitutionally, only Congress can declare war. Congress has given up that power, and continues to affirm that they have given up their war powers.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday rejected a Democratic proposal to require congressional approval before the US can take military action against Iran.

Machiavelli has a dictum, “Good laws cannot save bad people; and good people can make bad laws work.”

The US constitution, despite American worship, is a flawed document. But it’s not its flaws that matter, because where it has virtues, such as putting war-powers in the hands of Congress and not the Presidency, Congress has refused to embrace it.

Likewise, as Pelosi twists in the wind, and is taunted by Barr when he refuses Congress’s subpoenas, there is a Congressional remedy: The Sergeant-at-Arms can arrest Barr. It would be constitutionally valid to do so. (And Congress runs DC, and DC has plenty of jails, so yes, there is somewhere to put him.)

The issue is that Congress members and leadership don’t want to use their power. They want an Imperial President. They want war, without the responsibility for it.

The Founders assumed that Congress members would want power and would protect their powers–they didn’t anticipate this debilitating weakness, this cowardice, on the part of Congress.

Bad people can’t even make good laws work.

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Who Do You Want to Win an Iranian/American War?

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On May 9, 2019

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Yeah, so let’s say it does happen. Who do you want to win?

I’ll lay my cards on the table. I don’t like the Iranian government. Their policies, generally speaking, are abominable to me. I believe in full equality between the sexes, don’t believe in religious states, and so on. Ideologically, these people are my enemies.

But the fact of the matter here is that it’s the US that has far more responsibility for starting a war here. Iran has not attacked the US. There is no legitimate case for war. The US tolerates far worse regimes if they are its allies (Hello Saudi Arabia!), so they aren’t doing it because they care about the Iranian population.

Even if the US did care, well, any war they wage will make the population far worse off, as it did in Iraq and Libya.

The US is by far and away the bad actor here. So, yeah, I hope it loses any war it starts. That’s unlikely, of course, but the next best outcome, that it further overstrains the US, and leads to its continued economic and political weakening, eventually leading to an outright collapse, is not.

The US is the world’s foremost rogue state. Russia doesn’t come close, despite all the squealing. The US attacks other countries all the time, constantly assassinates people, and imposes massive crippling sanctions for bogus reasons, which kill millions.

The US is evil.

So long as it is evil, it needs to either stop being evil, or lose its power.

Sooner rather than later.

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Saudi Arabia’s Laughably Stupid Plan for the End of Oil

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On April 29, 2019

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Image by Yuan2003

I’ve been predicting Saudi Arabia’s crackup for some time. Their society is completely dependent on oil revenues, and their rulers have no idea how to diversify off in time.

Couldn’t happen to a bigger bunch of jerks, though as usual, many innocents and powerless people will get dead, raped, and tortured as Saudi Arabia falls.

This piece by Jeff Spross, hasn’t changed my mind. It’s about how the Sauds are selling assets to get US dollars so they can pay for the changeover.

The expert Spross talks to has ideas on what the Sauds could use that money on:

Kaboub proposes the country use advanced aquaponics to build up its self-sufficiency in food — aquaponics can be done indoors for ten percent of the water used by traditional agriculture — and switch over to renewable energy. “It’s a prime location for wind and solar and geothermal,” he noted. Kaboub’s also a fan of a universal job guarantee, which he thinks can serve as a staging policy to lower unemployment and build up other domestic industries.

What does the royal family, lead by the Crown Prince bin Salman (of the Yemeni war and the chopping a journalist to pieces in the Istanbul embassy) think is a good plan?

For the moment, though, the Saudi government has a different vision. Their plan focuses somewhat on renewables and diversifying manufacturing, but the big initiative is on moving the economy more into high-end luxury tourism.

I am entirely sincere when I say that I never imagined they would be this stupid.

The Saud family’s days ruling Saudi Arabia are numbered. Praise God, because only he could have made them quite this imbecilic.

Lifted from the comments, by StewartM

Tourism?

As someone who knows someone who worked a stint in Saudi Arabia, this is gobsmacking. Let’s just name a few:

1) Want to go on a desert excursion? Oops, be careful, you may meet some religiously conservative armed Bedouins.

2) Hey, how about scuba diving along the coast? Well, don’t have an accident or the bends, because hospital services are limited to deal with it.

3) Public displays of affection are a no-no (we’re talking heterosexual husband and wife; don’t even thing same-gender). Mixing of the genders if they’re unrelated is a no-no too. The moral code is enforced by “volunteer” police zealots who have the power to detain you if they think you are breaking Islamic law.

Homosexuality and other violations of the Saudi Islamic moral code apply even in compounds exclusively for foreigners and are enforced in surprise raids.

4) Alcohol and pornography are banned. Mind you, the Saudis may deem your favorite character on the video game on your phone or laptop “pornographic” and seize your device, so their definition of “pornography” probably doesn’t match yours.

5) See something interesting? Want to take a photo? Don’t. You could be arrested for it, as a spy.

6) Don’t talk about politics, especially if it casts even the slightest detraction against the Saudi government or royal family.

7) Don’t wear any non-Islam religious emblems. Public observances of any other religious in a crime.

8) And let’s not talk about the difficulty in obtaining both an entry visa, and an exit visa, to boot. (I’d presume they’d fix that).

In short, Saudi Arabia would be a land where rich tourists would check into their $5,000-a-night hotel in a gated Western compound, and just stay there, not daring to go out. Oh, even then there might be a raid if immoral conduct is suspected.

Unless Crown Prince bin Salman’s plan involves remaking Saudi Arabia into a secular state, from stem to stern, Saudi Arabia will be a country where almost nobody wants to go visit. This is by design:

“My Kingdom will survive only insofar as it remains a country difficult to access, where the foreigner will have no other aim, with his task fulfilled, but to get out.” — King Abdul Aziz bin Saud, c. 1930

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

When Are You Guilty for the Crimes of Your Group

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On February 13, 2019

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One of the most stable political situations in the West is the use of charges of anti-semitism to attack those who criticize Israel.

Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, who championed Palestine in her primary run, was quickly broken by the pro-Israeli lobby, before she was even elected. The UK Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has been under constant attack for “anti-semitism” because Corbyn is sympathetic to Palestinians. And recently, Representative Ilhan Omar suggested that donation from AIPAC are why Congress supports Israel.

(I don’t think that’s mostly correct. They fear AIPAC for far more than monetary reasons.)

Anyway, Ilhan was forced to apologize.

I tend to avoid the Israel-Palestine issue because it’s so dangerous. It’s the only issue I’ve ever been told to shut my mouth about or else (a donor strike, in that case).

But let’s state this simply: Israel is a religious-ethnic apartheid settler state, where the land and homes of much of the people who lived there were seized by force.

The problem is that criticism if Israel, a particularly evil state, is deliberately conflated with criticism of Jews, because Israel is an explicitly Jewish state.

So, here’s the formula:

Jews: Wonderful.

Israelis: Citizens of an apartheid, colonial state running the world’s largest open air prison. Any Israeli who opposes their government’s Palestinian policies is good in that regard.

Any Israeli who supports the government is evil. It’s not hard.

Let us extend this:

Germans: Wonderful.

Germans who supported the Nazis. Evil.

Germans who opposed the Nazis. Good.

Or:

Americans: Wonderful

Americans who supported the Iraq War: Evil.

Americans who opposed the Iraq War: Good.

(We could instead say, oh, Whites, or African Americans, or women, then move to Americans.)

People have responsibility exactly equal to their power. Nonetheless, if you support evil, you are culpable.

Most ethical situations are, in fact, black and white. We like to pretend they aren’t. Let’s take another situation:

Raising the price of Insulin 1000 percent in a few years: Evil.

People who do it? Mass murderers.

Correct punishment? Same as for any other murderers.

None of this is to say redemption is impossible. One of my friends supported the Iraq War. He quickly realized his mistake, reversed his position and has consistently opposed shitty American wars since then.

George Bush wouldn’t get off so easy: He had a lot of power, therefore his responsibility is much greater and as he’s no longer in power, he can no longer “make it up”.

The rule for redemption is as follows:

First stop doing evil. Apologize. Make it up. Those insulin execs: Drop the prices back down. Disgorge all the profits you made, with a priority to the families of those you killed. That’s all it takes.

But if you keep doing it or supporting it you are responsible or complicit.

This isn’t hard. Don’t do evil. Don’t support evil. If you do or support evil, then you are stained by that evil.

As for Israelis: It is not their fault they are Israelis. However, if they support their government’s policies against Palestinians, well, they’re evil.

The same is true of Jews, as it is of individuals belonging to identity-group you wish to name.

With respect to Israel, well, all it has to do is offer all Palestinians full citizenship and give them reparations equal to what was stolen. This will probably mean the end of Israel as an religious-ethnic state, but, umm, are religious ethnic states a good thing?

We all know what is required when we do wrong. Stop doing harm, apologize, and recompense the victim(s) as best one is able. (Yeah, this applies to black descendents of slavery in the US, though not so much as it does to the remaining Native Americans in the US, Canada, and elsewhere.)

While often what we should do as individuals isn’t true of states, for redemption and forgiveness, it is. Stop doing evil. Say sorry. Make it up as best one can.

But first stop doing evil.

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“A Single Death Is a Tragedy…”; Saudi Edition

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On October 12, 2018

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“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. — Joseph Stalin”

So, one man, Jamal Khashoggi, gets tortured and killed, but he happens to be a man elites know and like, and suddenly…

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is engaged in a genocide in Yemen. Of course, the US has been aiding that genocide…

It’s not that Kashoggi’s death isn’t a crime, but that any number of nameless people can be killed, raped, and tortured, and elites don’t care. It’s only when it’s one of them that they care.

Normal people are nothing–less than nothing–to our elites.

But they take care of their own.

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Tales of Canadian Healthcare and Potential Russia/US War in Syria

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On September 13, 2018

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So, posting has been, errr, non-existent for a bit as I’ve been dealing with some (probably minor) healthcare issues.

Earlier this week, I had exploratory surgery and, later, an MRI. The total time for the exploratory surgery (entering the hospital to leaving) was about five hours. The total time for the MRI was two hours, of which I spent 45 minutes semi-dozing inside the machine.

Total price? $20 for some pain killers to take home with me after the day-surgery. Oxycodone (the generic form of Oxycontin), which is the first time I’ve had it (I’ve had plenty of morphine and codeine at various points), and, ummm, I can see why a lot of people get addicted.

Generally speaking the nurses, doctors, techs, and orderlies were all polite and efficient. The nurses and doctors at the day surgery stood out as particularly solicitous, which I appreciated. I haven’t always had the best experience with surgery (understatement alert), so getting the feeling that they cared and were competent was nice.

Contrary to the propaganda, all of this was relatively expeditious. I don’t have an urgent problem, so the process hasn’t been super fast, but it hasn’t been slow, either.

And this is Canadian healthcare.

Regular posting should resume soon.

Idlib province in Syria is a potential flashpoint between the US and Syria/Russia. The Syrians want to clear up the Al-Qaeda subsidiary there, and the Americans want to pretend they aren’t Al-Qaeda, and have been saber rattling and stating that Assad is going to attack chemically, and the US will retaliate.

Lots of stupid here, and a small–but real–chance of starting something nasty between the US and Russia, which the US might well lose, actually, since the US has fallen behind both on missiles and missile defense technology.

Let’s hope not. Not getting into a war in Syria with Russia was Trump’s main selling point, but he seems to have since become deranged about Syria’s Iran ties, because the US’s foreign policy, apparently, is about doing what Saudi Arabia and Israel want, not what is good for the US.

Sigh.

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

White Helmet

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On August 12, 2018

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MANDOS Post

The Assad regime in Syria is ghastly, and I have no truck with the sort of leftism or anti-imperialism that lionizes it as some kind of grand resistance against imperialism — it is of the same sort of moral absurdity that attempts to paint Russia as anything other than a weaker rival imperialist competing with the US, as though it were a kind of moral paragon. You can make a case for or against a multipolar world in utilitarian terms (more stable or prosperous in some sense?), you can have ideological content preferences among the different imperialism flavours, but ghastly regimes are still ghastly and military imperialism always involves mass suffering. Whose catspaw the Assad regime is does not make it more or less criminal. Someone who wants its overthrow is not automatically an ideological fellow-traveller of ISIS.

On the other hand, I also have no patience for the neoconservative/liberal hawk tomfoolery that uses the Assad regime’s ghastliness (and the horror show that encompasses its victory for anyone who is seen as an enemy of the regime) as a reason to wash away the utter failure and downright evil of the intervention in Iraq. (Is this “virtue-signalling”? I’m under the impression that in some quarters, if you’re anti-Assad, you must be an interventionist.) I am not a pacifist, so in principle I accept that there is a case to be made, under very abstracted conditions, for a stronger military power to intervene to prevent suffering in another country. In practice, the conditions under which this leads to a better outcome are very rare–if they ever occur at all. The risks of creating a worse situation in Syria, given the experience in Iraq, are extremely high. The vested interests are strong, the risk of making a bad situation worse from a direct overthrow of the Assad government are overwhelming for that and other reasons.

Which leads me to the question of the White Helmets. I gather that a lot of people on the “anti-imperialist” side view them as propaganda catspaws of imperialists. The reason for this seems largely to be that they operate in areas held by forces opposed to the regime (this to me is perfectly legitimate — how could a rebel trust the government to conduct rescues?), organizational and media help is offered by foreign entities with vested interests in the overthrow of the Assad government (again, to me legitimate — I would accept such help if I were opposed to the regime and in dire straits), and they receive foreign funding (ditto). None of these indict the organization to me — victims of Assad’s attempt to retake forces held by opposition groups are going to need rescue from someone and frankly, publicity.

Now it appears that a large number of them have been given asylum by Israel en route to being distributed to other countries, as Assad looks to retake most of all of Syria. If they stayed, surely they would face criminal proceedings (or, probably, much worse) from the Syrian government. But a lot of anti-imperialist (pro-Assad?) commentators, including/especially on the left, seem to view this as a further indictment of the White Helmets. Naturally, there is considerable moral inconsistency in Israel’s action, to say the least, but that is not an ethical quandary for those who are fleeing Assad.

What are they supposed to do? Stay and face Assad’s torturers (which he definitely uses)?

It should generally be possible to accept the legitimacy of opposition to Assad, including (especially!), rescue of his enemies, while criticizing the vested interests that might seek to take advantage of his overthrow.

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